


Participles

by heyfrenchfreudiana



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, Immigration & Emigration, Prompt Fic, Smut, Teacher-Student Relationship, Tumblr Prompt, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, wanda is not underage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 19:24:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9781679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyfrenchfreudiana/pseuds/heyfrenchfreudiana
Summary: Based on a tumblr prompt by Anon for winterwitch and teacher-student. Wanda Maximoff is drawn to her teacher, Mr. Barnes. It seems he is also drawn to her.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sleepygrimm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepygrimm/gifts).



> my first winterwitch and actually, the first time I've written smut for someone besides stevenat so I hope I've done it justice. Gifted to sleepygrimm, because she's been asking me to write this pairing for months.

Wanda Maximoff was weird. Being a refugee didn't help things- her clothes weren't quite right, she didn't always say the right things or know the right words, and she felt like she missed a lot. People stopped talking when she came into a room. She got a lot of looks. The awkward foreign girl from Sokovia whose trauma was visible a mile away. 

She got used to being by herself. 

Refugee status meant many things. It meant food stamps and immigration paperwork and an underlying fear that she’d make a mistake and be sent back. It meant missing what she’d left, what she’d lost, and it meant wondering if she’d be alone in a country that was loud and beautiful and hurried. 

She signed up for English classes at the adult school by the tiny apartment she shared with a Ukrainian girl and her daughter, because she didn't know what else to do. In Sokovia, she had planned to go college. Had planned to maybe be a teacher. She would have been the first woman in her family to do so and she remembered how proud her mother had always been, how apart of her own narrative “going to college” had always been. 

She didn't know where to begin in the USA. She didn't know what she could even do, least of all because she didn't feel comfortable with the language. She felt utterly lost and blind, not that she wasn't determined to find her way. She owed it to too many to give up. 

_ (Her brother use to say she was like one of those little rat dogs when she got mad, because she had a bite and she never gave up. She missed his banter, missed the teasing.) _

Even her English teacher, Mr. Barnes, thought she was weird. Wounded. Which was saying something because he was weird himself. An army vet with a metal hand and a faraway look in his eyes. He was the one who always came to class late and she figured he was drunk half the time, that he was drinking vodka in his water bottle. He was gruff and didn't smile and she’d caught him once after school with his head in his hands at his desk

( _ She’d wanted to ask him to give her more vocabulary words. A list or something to help her with the slang. Anything. More worksheets or something because she was truthfully so fucking bored. And when she went back to the class he was there, shoulders hunched and his long dark hair covering his palms. Wanda felt embarrassed and guilty, even more so when he started to shake. She didn't ask him for help that night.) _

When Mr. Barnes stopped her after class and asked her if she was alright, she blushed and clutched her notebook and pencil case tight. His eyes were grey-blue and so crystal clear, like the ocean, and she nodded. She wasn't fine, not really. Nightmares, ghosts. They never left her and she didn't think that was what her teacher was asking but she wasn't sure.

He gave her a small smile and she felt her heart jump. “I mean in here. In English.” 

Wanda shrugged and tried not to stare at his lips. He hadn't shaved and she wanted to run her hand along his jaw. She held back. She wondered if he ate. If he slept. 

At the end of the next class, she brought him a paper bag. A container that had once held lunch meat repurposed to hold chicken and rice, a roll wrapped in a paper towel on top, a plastic fork and knife in her other hand. Not quite the recipe she’d use at home...Sokovia...her old home...because the spices were hard to find and she couldn't figure out the stove. But something. A thank you for his teaching. An acknowledgement that she saw him. 

“Wanda…” he said quietly we he had opened the bag, his eyes wide like he didn't believe it. She thought maybe he would tell her she shouldn't have, even though she had wanted to, the idea of it making her happier than she’d been in a long time.

“Please,” she put her hand on his for emphasis, though when she looked up and saw the way he looked at her, she pulled back. It was his turn to nod.  She didn't know the right words to say how important it was. She should have said it was no big deal, downplayed it somehow. It  _ was  _ a big deal though and convincing him to accept her gift felt urgent almost. 

“Only if you...ah…” he paused. “If you share with me?” 

Wanda wasn't sure if she should, if that would be rude. But she sat down anyway when he pulled up a chair beside his desk, if only because she was intrigued, if only because she went from school back to her apartment and there wasn't anything waiting for her there.

Mr. Barnes sat at his chair and opened the paper towel before flashing her a smile that made her melt. She hadn't expected it and was taken by surprise. She smiled back and swallowed, still clutching her notebook because she wasn't sure what to do. He broke the bread in half and offered it to her, that smile still there, and then took a bite. 

“This is…” he started as he opened the container and she thought his voice was shaky just then. His eyes, she realized, were watery. For the first time, Wanda exhaled. She understood the emotion. Being considered. Being cared for. When was the last time she had even shared a meal? She couldn't remember. (Pietro. A pizza and two beers he’d miraculously swiped from God knows where).

“This is so nice,” he finally settled on an answer. “I don't get many home cooked meals. Usually whatever I can scrounge up.”

Wanda imagined him “scrounging”. Pietro had always eaten anything, so much that the rations had been hard on him. A good reason he had gotten good at theft, even though she knew he was careful who and careful to give to the families near first. She pressed her lips together because she knew she was about to ask something embarrassing. She was about to make a mistake. She did it anyway. 

“I can… bring you dinner again. If your wife…”

She had tacked that last part on impulsively and she wasn't sure where it had even come from though she was kicking herself after it was said. A boundary. Something she had no right to ask or know about and she felt stupid for it. He coughed and reached for the flask in his wrinkled jacket. 

“No,” he said as he cleared his throat, his face red and she wished she could hide. She channeled her brother instead and straightened her shoulders. 

“To dinner?”

“No,” he said quickly and handed her the flask. She looked at it and supposed she should feel scandalized. “To a wife. Dinner would be… nice. Probably unethical but nice.”

Wanda blushed, her face heating up and every butterfly floating around as she grabbed the flask. It  _ was _ vodka, though she tried not to grimace. She was already thinking of things to make him and barely noticed when he had pulled his workbook off the stack of papers on his desk or when he’d turned the page to participles. Wanda hated participles. 

“The least I can do is give you extra study time, alright?” 

She really would have done it for free but she shrugged anyway and pushed aside her uneaten half of bread so that she could lay her notebook down.

“The trick to knowing when to say the ‘ed’ in a word is how your tongue hits your teeth,” he said as he started pointing out words with his pencil. “It’s something everyone messes up when they learn English. Just… look at my mouth, ok…”

Wanda did, immediately regretting it for the thoughts it caused her. His mouth as he said different verbs. She did see the difference of course, could see what he wanted to say, that some words had harder endings. But his mouth was so beautiful and she hadn’t kissed someone, hadn’t even thought about it, not for so long. 

“Cooked. Disintegrated. Looked. Liberated…”

“Kissed,” she mumbled, her fingers going to her own lips on instinct. He laughed and it made her want to laugh too, even if she wasn’t totally sure she hadn’t made an irreparable mistake. 

“Absolutely,” he grinned, suddenly looking like a boy. “That’s a good one.”

And then she took a bite of her roll and he moved on to future participles. They were interrupted when someone behind them knocked on the door. Wanda thought as she turned her head that she’d never cared more about verbs in her life or been as disappointed to see a class end. It was another professor, she thought. A tall blond who clutched a messenger bag close even as he looked inside the classroom, his eyes going wide when they saw that Wanda was there. 

“Buck, you ready?” 

Wanda furrowed her brow and memorized the nickname. Mr. Barnes. Buck. What kind of nickname that was, she didn’t know and she wondered how he’d earned it. She wondered what he was supposed to be ready for. 

“Almost, Steve. Just let me finish up with this student, okay?”

Steve looked surprised but he nodded. “Of course. I’ll meet you out front. We gotta go pick up dinner though, Nat’s waiting.”

Mr. Barnes turned to her and smiled apologetically. “Sorry to cut this short, Wanda. I’m supposed to meet my friends tonight and well, if you knew Natasha, you’d know you don’t want to keep her waiting.”

Wanda grabbed her book and bit her lip. “I understand.”

“But next time? We’ll pick up where we left off,” he said, touching her hand with his metal one, his voice strong.  She drew in a sharp breath and her eyes darted to his fingers, cool on her skin. 

And then Wanda nodded and excused herself quickly. She thought as she walked to the subway station about his mouth and what it would be like to kiss him. To have kissed him. To have been kissed by him. It was a dangerous thought. She knew that, knew she shouldn’t think of her teacher that way. When she got to the market, she picked out a few potatoes and thought of him kissing her anyway. 

***

When he stared into space at the start of class, she thought about Sokovia. She’d seen that look before, seen the way men looked away. Especially the soldiers, the ones who’d were remembering their fallen brothers. And the old men who remembered the way the country used to be, before the bombs and the rations and the draft. Before they’d lost everything. Wanda wished she could tell Mr. Barnes that she knew what it was like to remember, to be haunted. She made him a pastry instead, using phyllo dough and walnuts. 

***

Her lawyer said that the United States might change its’ mind on whether or not Sokovians would be allowed to stay as refugees, that they would have to work fast to send in paperwork for a Green Card, that she needed to continue learning English so that she could prove she was a productive member of society. 

“So I can be a ‘Permanent Resident Alien’,” she said carefully against Mr. Barnes’ frown. The plates in his arms whirred, filling the silence between what she’d explained and his response. 

“I really hate that wording,” he said finally. “You're a girl. Not an alien.”

“A girl?” Wanda thought maybe she hated that wording more. She wasn’t a girl. She was nineteen. She hadn’t been a girl from some time, hadn’t felt young since she was still playing in dolls. In fact, she was very much a woman. Was that how he saw her? As a girl? It made her angry and she wasn’t sure why.

“I wish it wasn’t so hard,” he explained, his metal hand clenched into a fist on the desk. “You’ve been through hell. Why can’t they just let you be…”

Wanda felt her throat close up, felt the emotion rise through her body and she shook her head because she didn’t want to share that with him. That was supposed to be private. It was shared anyway and she realized she’d been crying when his hands moved to cup her face, two thumbs wiping away tears. 

“I wish I could make that better,” he said in a low voice. Wanda closed her eyes, her mind remembering all that had been hell, which only made it harder to keep it together and she tried to breathe but then she just got dizzy and then…

His lips brushed against hers softly and she snapped open her eyes because she wasn’t sure it was really happening, except that it was. Mr. Barnes pulled back quick, his eyes dark and his face so guilty and she couldn’t breathe because this was what she wanted, if she was honest. The feel of another person, of him. 

“Wanda, I’m sorry,” he stammered and this time she shook her head. 

“No.”

He didn’t understand, just repeated her. “No? No, I am sorry…”

“No,” she said, this time stronger. She moved out of her chair and leaned toward him. “Please.”

Mr. Barnes looked uncertain and yet she knew because she could see it with her own eyes that he wanted her, that he’d kissed her intentionally. She couldn’t let him feel guilty for that, couldn’t let him never kiss her again, not when she knew it was exactly what she needed. She inhaled deeply and pressed her lips to his before he could stop her. 

And then they were kissing. Kissing like Wanda had never been kissed before, because he pulled her by the waist real close and laced his hand- the human one- through her hair as he pried her mouth open with his tongue. She’d never in her life kissed someone with as much need and she knew she should stop but she didn’t want to because he was taking every breath she had and she didn’t have to think anymore. 

It was dangerous, even more so when she sat, her legs on either side of his lap so that she could grab the lapels of his jacket tight. His lips burned against hers and when she touched one cheek and felt the stubble, something about it made her tingle, the spot between her legs suddenly aching to be touched because she wanted more. He did too, she thought, feeling the press of him against her, his manhood hard between them like a weapon. 

“Wanda,” he growled and she grabbed his metal hand and guided it to her naked thigh. She’d worn a skirt that day, a small choice she was thankful for because of the way his hand felt then. He brought the other one down to her breast and all she peeked toward the door, her heart racing in case Mr. Barnes’s friend stopped by to interrupt them again. Not that she cared, not when metal fingers were walking boldly under her skirt toward her underwear. 

“Mister…” she stopped, feeling weird at saying his name, at not having permission to call him by his Christian name, and he pulled back and smirked. 

“James,” he said then, even as his fingers were moving aside her panties so that he could stroke her, his other hand moving underneath her shirt to cup one of her breasts. It should have come to no surprise, though it did, that he knew what he was doing. For her part, Wanda shivered and curved her hand around the outline of his dick, straining through his jeans. If she was going to be that girl, the one who messed around with a teacher like a… well, like a whore… then she was going to go all in. 

There were no further words, just the sound of his breath or maybe his zipper when she’d pulled him out. The sound of her moaning when he snapped her underwear, cheap fabric that ripped and then was tossed thoughtlessly to the ground next to her bookbag. The way he whimpered when she moved, positioning herself above him, or the way she whimpered right with him when he was finally inside. 

“Boze…” she hissed between clenched teeth as she took him in, as she let the feel of him overcome her. It was as if they both understood the danger, that they had to be quiet or risk getting caught. Her skirt fanned around them and he was still wearing his pants, the material of his jeans rubbing against her thighs, and she kidded herself that they wouldn’t look to indecent to the naked eye. His mouth sucked on her clavicle and she moved her hips, split open and impatient for the warmth of pleasure to take over. 

“You’re so fuckin’ beautiful,” he cursed into her skin. She stifled a laugh, feeling drunk, and he was babbling. It sounded like music. “So fuckin’...” 

“Shh…” she giggled and put her hand over his mouth, meeting his eyes, shivering at the intensity and the heat. He smiled against her palm, a mischievous look passing before she squeaked, nimble fingers tracing her clit, pressing insistently, relentlessly. 

She moved her hand so that she could kiss him, so that she could grab his hair and moan into his mouth as he fucked her, as his fingers teased out her pleasure. For his part, he didn’t say anything else, not until she was biting into his shirt, that feeling right there, that heavy feeling that made her feel like she might float away entirely. She could feel him, tighter and tighter inside her and she knew by his breaths that he was close. Wanda wanted him to finish, wanted to be the reason he felt good, and she rocked on the balls of her feet and whispered in his ear in Sokovian. 

_ “You feel so good. Fuck, you feel so good inside me, wanna feel you for days…” _

She felt smug for speaking so dirty and the knowledge that he didn’t speak her language. He grunted and grabbed her hips and she knew he was close so she kept going. 

“ _I’ve always wanted you. Always wanted to feel you, can’t stop thinking about you, about your mouth and your dick and the way you make me feel so… special._ ” That was the truth, she thought. He had always made her feel special and a little less alone. She whispered how hot she was, how wet, and then he kissed her quiet. 

“ _Da_ , _I know_ ,” he whispered, the sound of her language on his tongue causing her heart to stop. “You wanna know how many nights I’ve thought of fucking you, Doll? How many times I’ve wanted to grab your ass and sit you right here on this fucking desk so that I can bury my face between your thighs and make you scream?” 

Wanda gasped, wild-eyed as he answered her in Sokovian and then English, telling her about how hot she was, how good it felt having her wet cunt around his cock, how crazy she made him she was the first person who really saw him, the first person who he’d wanted to be around since before…

He didn’t finish his sentence because he was busy groaning into her, busy filling her and letting himself go. Not that she cared, her whole body on fire and so good, the best kind of good, the kind that felt like anything was possible and like nothing else mattered. 

And then he collapsed, arms dropping to his sides and his head hitting the chalkboard. He looked so peaceful then, so much that Wanda didn’t want to move, didn’t want to do anything to stop the moment. 

“You speak Sokovian,” she murmured, her cheek against his shoulder. She could hear him smile, his heart pounding. 

“I know a few words,” he said, his metal hand tugging her close and a finger stroking her arm. “Hadda learn it when I was in the army…”

Wanda moved, pulling him out, a loss she was sad for, before re-positioning herself on his lap. “It’s nice to hear my language again.”

James kissed the top of her head. “Never thought I’d need to use it again.”

She imagined him in her own city, imagined that maybe they’d passed each other on the street. Or maybe he’d bumped into her mama at the market while on patrol. Or shooed away Piet, who was always making trouble. And then she smiled to herself and let herself imagine that maybe she’d seen him too. 

“Mr. Barnes,” she started and then corrected herself. “James. Can we see each other outside of the classroom? Can I see you as more than a student?”

“Probably not,” he said ruefully. “Though like hell I won’t try.”

She closed her eyes for a second and imagined walking with him in the city or at the park. Going to the cinema. Making him dinner and then making love on the kitchen floor. She decided she’d try too, that he was worth it. 

“Good.”


End file.
